Friday, Feb 20 5:30-9:00. 3440 West Broadway. RSVP Required. Join us for movie night on February 20th. We will meet at a nearby restaurant for dinner at 5:30 and start the movie about 7:00. You can come for dinner, or the movie, or both. You can bring snacks or drinks to enjoy during the film if you like. We will watch “The Vancouver Asahi”, a recent Japanese film: http://www.straight.com/movies/722821/viff-2014-japanese-blockbuster-tell-vancouvers-asahi-baseball-team-story Please RSVP by Feb 18th to rsvp@mokuyokai.bc.ca Also indicate your full name, contact information, if you are Mokuyokai annual member or not, also if you will be joining for dinner, movie or...

Friday, October 30. 3:30pm – 6:00pm. Asian Centre Auditorium (1877 West Mall, UBC). Free of charge. Canadian Premiere of Minako: Last Geisha of the Yoshiwara Please join us for this screening of a documentary movie on the last living geisha of the Yoshiwara district. In addition to the screening, there will be brief presentations on geisha and Edo culture by director Makoto Yasuhara and Edo specialist Kenji Watanabe. Director Makoto Yasuhara spent six years getting to know and document the life of a practicing geisha of the Yoshiwara district of Tokyo. Until Minako’s death in 2010 at age 90, she was the last living geisha (literally “a practitioner of the arts”) of the Yoshiwara, the only licensed area for prostitution in the old city of Edo (present Tokyo). Yoshiwara was once occupied by courtesans and those versed in traditional arts. Following World War II, the district was officially closed, but the cultural traditions lived on through the work of geisha like Minako. Co-sponsored by the UBC Department of Asian Studies and Centre for Japanese Research, together with...

6:00-7:30 Film Screening of the documentary “Sugihara: Conspiracy of Silence”. [Vancouver Maritime Museum]. One of the most compelling and inspirational stories coming out of World War II tells of the extraordinary courage and compassion of Chiune Sugihara. In the face of the Nazi onslaught, this modest diplomat saved thousands of lives by using his authority to rescue fleeing Jewish refugees. This remarkable documentary chronicles the life of Sugihara and the litte-known relationship between the Japanese and Jews in the 1930s and...